John Locke believes that personal identity across time involves and relies on identity of consciousness. Locke’s view explains the continuation of consciousness across all personal states, such as living or dreaming, while also managing to persist across time. In his examination of personal identity, Locke analyzes the close connection between consciousness and the concept of a person. He judges that two or more substances may be considered to be the same person if they share and partake in an identical, same consciousness. It is not true, according to Locke, that personal identity across time is reliant on the identity of the substance of a mind, soul or body. The same consciousness may extend between many bodies of various substances and periods of time, but their constant consciousness is the key that unites their personal identity.
Consciousness can span across experiences and actions from past to present. Locke considers consciousness to be a necessary condition for thought, which is heavily secured to his definition of person. However, John Locke draws on a distinct difference between personal identity and identity of man. In his understanding of the word man, Locke observes that identity of man depends on a shared, continued life. A collection of particles and matter that partake in the same life of an individual, constant body determines if that individual is indeed the same man.
In contrast to the two previous applications of identity, John Locke considers substance identity to consist of a collection of one or more atoms that remain constant and unchanging throughout their existence as part of a substance. That substance in question will remain the same substance, only if it exists as the same throughout the considered time. Locke’s belief in a constant, same substance can be explained as a simpler substance in order to better model complex substances. He considers an atom that may exist as the same, only if it persists as the same throughout time. If you slowly build and combine these constant, unchanging atoms, a more complex substance may be considered to be the same, only if its fundamental pieces and atoms are the same, regardless of its rearrangement. In his separation of person, man, and substance, John Locke is able to examine the various applications of the term identity.
John Locke’s prince-and-the-cobbler example describes a scenario in which a prince’s soul has departed from his body, along with his consciousness, and traveled into the body of a cobbler, whose own soul has been removed. In this scenario, Locke notes that the cobbler would embody the same person as the prince, because the body would be host to the prince’s same, unchanging consciousness and awareness of the prince’s past actions. This new cobbler, who is now host to the prince’s consciousness, could be held liable for the prince’s actions. However, Locke does not believe it is as easy to claim that the cobbler and the prince are the same man, due to the fact that the identity of man constitutes the body, and the two do not share the same body. To an outsider blind to the soul, the prince and the cobbler would appear very different.
In this example, John Locke is able to portray his belief in the difference between person, soul, and man. To better understand these qualities of identity, we much define and treat all three terms clearly in order to evaluate them properly. Locke is also able to explain and make possible the ability of the same person to embody vastly different physical bodies through time, commonly known as resurrection. His distinction of these three qualities will better explain the nature of certain scenarios and give answers to common disputes pertaining to conflicts of identity.